Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hammerschlagen

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 02:01, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hammerschlagen[edit]

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This game (or as COI editors insist we must call it, this "brand") fails WP:GNG for lack of significant reliable coverage. Currently there are six references. The only "independent reliable source" is a one-paragraph item from 2010 in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The others are blog entries, Trademarkia, and the company's website. In a search just now I found a few mentions of "the traditional German game Hammerschlagen" (which is incorrect; there are traditional German nail-driving games, but an American defined and trademarked the specific game Hammerschlagen). But I could not find enough material to build an article about the nail-driving games, and I found nothing at all about the "brand" Hammerschlagen. MelanieN (talk) 17:16, 9 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I have a history with this article. In February of this year, the self-described CEO of the company demanded on the talk page in very legalistic language that we clean up "factual errors". His main purpose was to defend his trademarks, and further to insist that this article could ONLY be about the trademarked version that they market (vs. generic games called Hammerschlagen that are not theirs). Although I expressed doubts about notability at the time, I helped to clean up and improve the article. I thought we had stabilized it. But over the past few days three different IPs have posted to the article, changing the word "game" to "brand" at every usage (and creating some ridiculously redundant sentences in the process). That does it; I have had it with this article. I should have tagged it as non-notable back in February. Now it is not only non-notable but promotional, with representatives of the company repeatedly tweaking it for their own purposes. --MelanieN (talk) 17:18, 9 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Games-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 15:44, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Who would ever have thought that banging nails into a piece of wood could lead to such a load of legalistic nonsense? Unbelievable! -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:46, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment @Necrothesp. I got involved here because we want Wikipedia to stop encouraging the public to steal our property by using our trademarks without our permission. To promote such theft is extremely unethical: it is no different than Wikipedia promoting the unlawful use of Coke's trademarks and encouraging the public to engage in such illegitimate use. Wikipedia's promotion to the public that it is acceptable to infringe upon our brand and the false promotion that Hammerschlagen is a generic word for a nail driving competition causes damage to us (called dilution). Such damage to Hammerschalgen would likely cause us to stop being able to do business under our brand and likely lead to the loss of our employee's and affiliates' jobs. My involvement here is to protect our employees, customers, and affiliates for obvious reasons; I'm not interested in using Wikipedia as an advertising medium. Jim at WRB (talk) 20:31, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@MelanieN: Thank you for informing me that you intend to delete the Hammerschlagen page for a lack of sources (I got an e-mail about it). It is unfortunate, but significant reliable coverage is limited simply because we are a cottage industry. I am still willing to help provide content and sources to this article. I know that you don't want us to directly edit Hammerschlagen, and I'm extremely confused as to how to give input. If you give me a place to provide information and a medium to ask questions when I need help, I'll do just that. Also, I noted that you are concerned with is the public's alteration of the article. Clearly, the public recognizes that brand of hammerschlagen is exactly that: a brand. It is not a game. "Hammerschalgen" is not the generic name for a nail driving competition just as Harley-Davidson is not the generic name for motorcycle and Miller is not the generic name for beer. You stated that "representatives of the company [are] repeatedly tweaking it for their own purposes." I want to be very clear about this: when we were asked to not to alter the article, we did just that. I would appreciate it if you would please not blame us for the public's alterations. Jim at WRB (talk) 20:31, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. In the past, I was told to create a draft. When I did, it was deleted without specifying what exactly was wrong so it could be fixed. The references to news articles and other content I gave on the talk page have been removed. When I ask questions about Wikipedia's rules or how to give input, I am ignored. I'm more than willing to contribute, and would appreciate not being swept under the rug and blamed for things I did not do. Jim at WRB (talk) 20:31, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

User:Jim at WRB, I'm glad you got the message. I understand your frustration. What is needed to save this article is references with significant coverage, such as news stories that are specifically about Hammerschlagen. I'll take a look at that deleted draft and see if there were sources in it that can be used. As for the recent changes, insisting that this must be called a "brand" rather than a "game" sounds like something that would be of interest only to the company and its lawyers, not to the "public", which is why I made that assumption. This discussion will last for a week, and if additional sources can be found that meet the requirements of the WP:General notability guideline or of WP:CORP, it should be OK. If you can find additional sources, you might want to list them here, so that they are visible to everyone evaluating the article. If they result in the article being kept, I will add them to the article myself. --MelanieN (talk) 16:37, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I took a look at your draft. No wonder it was deleted! It was mostly a lecture about the sanctity of the trademark, and the reference citations are full of legalistic disclaimers. But it did have references. Here are the references that are actually about Hammerschlagen; discussants can use them to evaluate notability. This and this are independent sources. This and this and this are from events where Hammerschlagen was played; the information was supplied by Hammerschlagen. This is an excellent history of the restaurant and family, but does not mention Hammerschlagen. --MelanieN (talk) 17:18, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@MelanieN. Considering that I have been trying to get Wikipedia to recognize the legitimacy of our brand (versus its promotion that Hammerschlagen is a generic name for a game), I can understand why you would assume that we made the "brand" vs "game" modification: I hope those edits have not caused hard feelings between us. (Pages like Harley-Davidson refer to the brand as a brand, so it must not be that far out.) Also, thank you for pointing out that the draft was too focused on the Hammerschlagen wordmark: now I know what, specifically, was at issue I know what to be mindful of in the future. For your consideration, here are some references (I see you have also found a few):
• http://www.citypages.com/news/dead-games-6705157 (Our vending in St. Paul, MN)
• http://www.milwaukeemag.com/2015/11/20/harley-davidson-museums-black-friday-beer-fest/ (Our vending in Milwaukee)
• http://www.minnesotamonthly.com/Blogs/Minnesota-Journeys/September-2012/Celebrate-Oktoberfest-at-Gasthaus-Bavarian-Hunter/ (Our vending at our "home")
• http://www.startribune.com/revving-up-for-oktoberfest/103640064/ (More about us at "home")
• http://www.seattleite.com/oktoberfest-northwest/ (Our brand at Okoberfest Northwest)
• http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20130921/NEWS01/709219941 (The Monroe Oktoberfest is no longer.)
• http://irishtastefest.com/games.html (a description of us and our vending)
• http://www.stmarysbrewfest.com/hammerschlagen.php (another bit about us and our vending)
• http://www.thenewsdispatch.com/news/article_1b068a1e-af1e-11e4-906d-a36bd4c41ab8.html (our brand in Michigan)
I would greatly appreciate it if Wikipedia would take some sort of action to communicate to the public that it is not acceptable to steal our property by infringing upon the trademarks and copyrights of our brand without our permission. I know you may not be able to say this explicitly, so maybe the answer is to create a separate section in the article describing the elements of our brand to the public (something like what was done with Coke, Real Hotels, or Sony)? It is the weekend, and we're busy pounding nails. I'll try to put more together about this for your review as soon as I can. In the mean time, would these references suffice? (There are more references in this list than, say, Apfelkorn, Schnapps, Sakura (cigarette), and The Troubles in Templepatrick in example.) Jim at WRB (talk) 22:58, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Found a source with a little more detail: http://lacrossetribune.com/stories/news/autumn-sun-tabs-oktoberfest-festivities/article_b4c6b340-c3c5-5679-9a10-7c69aa602711.html Jim at WRB (talk) 21:04, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 07:45, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Disregarding the frankly ridiculous sideshow, I can't find enough significant coverage in reliable sources to demonstrate notability. Any mentions I found where passing mentions, most of them on articles about Oktoberfest celebrations. Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 10:38, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Can't see any evidence of real notability. Just a minor sideshow game which has provoked far too much legalistic nonsense. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:53, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. As with the others I don't see sufficient significant coverage for this to be considered notable; there's a lot of passing mentions and promotion but not enough to pass GNG. (Alas, I can but regret that WP:HAMMER doesn't apply here.) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:51, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.